North Korea Attempts Missile Launch, Fails Spectacularly

Poor Lil’ Kim. North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un has been vying for attention ever since he got pushed off of the front pages by the election of President Donald Trump, Britain’s Brexit vote and the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady. And he’s managed to succeed, thanks to a series of erratic missile launches into the Sea of Japan.

In the early hours of Wednesday, the North Koreans decided to launch another missile into the inky blackness of the Sea of Japan. No doubt, Lil’ Kim got up, somehow coaxed that sheath of hair into a hairstyle that made the world tremble with laughter, and watched the launchpad for the latest development in his rocket program.

The preparations were all ready. The pigs were going to pay. The missile launched. And then, within seconds, it exploded.

Whoopsy-daisy.

“U.S. Pacific Command detected what we assess was a failed North Korean missile launch attempt … in the vicinity of Kalma,” Navy Cmdr. Dave Benham said, according to Reuters. “A missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch.”

An unidentified South Korean official agreed.

“It may have exploded right after it took off from a launch pad,” the official said.

The launch came just days after the North Koreans announced that a “new era” in weapons was about to begin in the Hermit Kingdom.

“He (Kim Jong Un) noted that the success made in the current test marked a great event of historic significance as it declared a new birth of the Juche-based rocket industry,” North Korean news agency KCNA said, according to The U.K. Guardian. “Juche” is the regime’s official name for its ideology, which is roughly translated as “self-reliance.”

“He emphasized that the whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries.”

Well, apparently, that great victory ended with a boom just yards (or “metres,” if you’re in that part of the world) off the launch pad in Wonsan, just one of the many cities choked with famine because Lil’ Kim‘s interest in his own people’s survival pales compared to his willingness to go through the rigamarole of increasingly meaningless missile launches that will just alienate his country further from the rest of the world.